The "Judgements" which God told Moses to set before the people (v1) started with service. The same applies to us.

V.2 Every Israelite was free-born, but slavery was permitted under certain restrictions. A Hebrew might be made a slave through poverty, debt, or crime; but at the end of six years he was entitled to freedom, and his wife, if she had voluntarily shared his state of bondage, also obtained release. Should he however, have married a female slave, she and the children, after the husband's liberation, remained the master's property; and if, through attachment to his family, the Hebrew chose to forfeit his privilege and abide as he was, a formal process was gone through in a public court, and a brand of servitude was put thru his ear. (Psa 40:6)  This was for life. In many ways, this is similar to our commitment at baptism, for life.

21:29    The specific mention of the ox which pushed with it’s horns is typical of the Jewish leaders who opposed Jesus as indicated in Psa 22:12

21:17   This judgement is hardly surprising given the commandment ‘honour thy father and mother …’ – Exo 20:21

Exo 21:32 - 30 shekels of silver was the amount of money paid to Judas to betray the Lord (Matt 26:15;Zech 11:12-13). In order to effect the atonement for believers, the Lord "took upon him the form of a servant" (Phil 2:7), and in his death was figuratively gored by a bull. Christ was a slave to his Father's will and initially to mortality. As Peter Forbes noted in his 2006 comments, the leaders of Jewry who secured Christ's death are likened to "bulls of Bashan," ready to attack him (Psa 22:12-13).

Some of the above was gleaned from The Book of Exodus: The Christadelphian Expositor, H.P. Mansfield, p.278.

21:26-27 The provision that if a servant is injured by his master he shall go free indicates that servants must be treated with respect. Even though the servant is the property of the owner he is not allowed to behave towards the servant as he pleases.

Sometimes we think that God is for us, when in reality He's not. Sometimes we think that, because He answered our prayers in some mighty way, He is with us. We think we're special. We can start to think nothing we do will be without His blessing.

This was the problem that Israel struggled with ever after their miraculous deliverance from Egypt. Through the wilderness they continually quoted the fact that they were now God's people in order to justify the way they were behaving (Num 12:2, 16:3). This continued right through till the time of Jesus and beyond (Matt 3:9) .

Why, we ask ourselves, if God is with us, is everything going wrong? (vs 1,11) Before we know it, we have strayed so far from the paths of God, that God has had to turn His hand against us and chasten us in order to bring us back. It can be the very blessings of God that have directly contributed to our going astray. It can be the visible hand of God in our lives, through miraculous answered prayer, that lifts us up in pride, and makes us forget that it is God doing the delivering, and not us. We can get too big for our boots.

In v7, Asaph calls God's people His Turtledove. Jeremiah tells us that this is only if we act like the animal itself. If we are to claim to be God's people, we should be acting like people of God. "Even the stork in the heavens knows her appointed times; And the turtledove, the swift, and the swallow observe the time of their coming. But My people do not know the judgment of the LORD." (Jer 8:7).

V.8 This is the only place where the word synagogues is used in the Old Testament.  It is derived from the Hebrew word mo'ed meaning an assembly or congregation, brought together ostensibly for celebrating set religious festivals.  The more formal structure which we relate to as a synagogue was a feature of the post-exilic age.  Solomon's temple had been destroyed and Jews could not centralize there.  And so they began to meet in their own locales. Even after Zerubbabel's temple had been completed, the meetings in the synagogues continued.

In Christ's time, although the magnificently refurbished Herod's temple shone in the brilliant Jerusalem sun, synagogue worship still flourished (Matt 4:23).

This psalm is in two parts. The first 9 verses (Psa 74:1-9) is telling God how evil people have been against Him. Then Psa 74:10-23 seems to be asking God to punish these wicked and godless people.  Of course we do not have to tell God anything. He knows it all.  But it's obviously a good thing (because the psalm is inspired), for us to list the evil deeds of people who have sinned against God.  We mustn't judge, but such an exercise, where we pray to God and tell Him all the evil we have seen today, can only do us good. At the very least, we remind ourselves of the huge difference between right and wrong.

74:18   That the enemy had ‘reproached’ and ‘blasphemed’ moved the Psalmist to ask God to intervene and deliver his sol (vs. 19). The true servant of God will be more concerned about how his God is viewed in the world than how the world views him.

74:8 The word translated ‘synagogues’ <04150> is only once translated such. More typically it is translated ‘set time’ – Gen 17:12 or ‘congregation’ – Exo 28:43 so we see the Psalmist is indicating a meetings of people at an appointed or set time.

74:14 ‘Leviathan’ is used elsewhere in Scripture – Job 41:1 to speak of an animal. However here it seems that the prophet is using the sword to speak of Egypt long before the prophet does so - Isa 27:1

We must ask ourselves, with respect to all the procedures that we adopt in our lives, whether they accord with what Scripture teaches or whether the procedures are designed to enable us to avoid thinking about the will of our Father and how it should be implemented in our daily and ecclesial lives.

7:17     In coming to ask Jesus about the parable his disciples are showing the true qualities of a disciple - they were learners. We should never be too proud to pretend that we know the answer when we do not. We should seek the answer from someone we think will be able to help.

The incident of Jesus' healing the deaf man with the speech impediment seems strange (vs.32-35). The Lord could have healed the man by just saying the word, like the healing of the Gentile woman's daughter. However, the Lord put his fingers in his ears and touched his tongue. Why this demonstration? I think the Lord was drawing attention to the spiritual wantonness of the Jews. They had stopped up their ears against hearing and understanding the Truth (Zech 7:11); and had shown, by their rhetoric, pride and arrogance, a contrary attitude to the spirit of Truth (Psa 12:3,4). As the Lord could unblock physical impediments (v.34), he could also open the way to eternal life to those willing to change their ways (John 3:15).

7:2   Now the Pharisees see the disciples eat bread with unwashed hands – That is they did not follow the ceremonial rules that the Jews introduced. So the disciples are criticised for eating. Jesus – Mark 6:42– had fed the 5,000. So Jesus fed the people. The Jewish leaders criticised the people for eating! The bread represented teaching.

7:17 so we see again – see Mark 4:10– the disciples asking for an explanation of the parables. Jesus used the parables to separate those who were interested in his message from those who were not. Those who were interested went and enquired further. Is this our attitude to Scripture?

Mark likes to record key Aramaic words that Jesus used. Of course, the common language of the region was Aramaic. In this chapter he records Corban = consecrated gift (v.11); Ephphath = Be opened (v.34). Other examples of Aramaic words and phrases are:

Boanerges = Sons of Thunder (3:17)

Talitha cumi  = girl rise (5:41)

Abba  = father (14:36)

Eloi eloi lama sabachthani?  = My God, My God why have you left me? (15:34)

7:24 Having been rejected, so to speak, by the Jews Jesus went to the gentiles by going to Tyre.